France

Sit­u­ated in West­ern Europe and with sev­eral over­seas regions and ter­ri­to­ries, France is one of the strongest economies and sup­port­ers in Europe. With a combined OTC and Pharma mar­ket value of US $39 billion, France is certainly a mature mar­ket.

The slight growth of the French mar­ket is the result of the use of gener­ics. Nev­er­the­less, the combination of a lack of inno­v­a­tive prod­ucts and a gigan­tic mar­ket value allows a lot of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies to expand in the country. What’s more, the OTC mar­ket in France is increas­ing more than the Rx sec­tor; people have recently been able to self-select cer­tain OTC prod­ucts in phar­ma­cies. The aver­age French citizen spends US $110 per year in the 23,100 phar­ma­cies with­out drugstores for OTC prod­ucts in the country, which is a pretty high num­ber for Europe. The phar­ma­cy­ density in France is 2,800 inhab­i­tants per phar­macy.

The OTC share in France amounts to 12%. With an OTC mar­ket value of US $4.68 billion in 2012, France is going to be a global player in this sec­tor. Gov­ern­mental support has allowed France to remain an attrac­tive player in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sec­tor—and an attrac­tive location for Pharma com­pa­nies from all over the world.